U.S. to Widen Supply Routes in Afghan War

Pakistani tanks on Tuesday in Jamrud during an offensive that closed the Khyber Pass, an allied supply route into Afghanistan.Credit
Ameer Zada/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The United States and NATO are planning to open and expand supply lines through Central Asia to deliver fuel, food and other goods to a military mission in Afghanistan that is expected to grow by tens of thousands of troops in the months ahead, according to American and alliance diplomats and military officials.

The plan to open new paths through Central Asia reflects an American-led effort to seek out a more reliable alternative to the route from Pakistan through the strategic Khyber Pass, which was closed by Pakistani security forces on Tuesday as they began an offensive against militants in the region.

The militants have shown that they can threaten shipments through the pass into Afghanistan, burning cargo trucks and Humvees over recent weeks. More than 80 percent of the supplies for American and allied forces in Afghanistan now flow through Pakistan.

And the demands made on supply routes are expected to increase greatly as heavy materials are moved to Afghanistan to build the structures needed for an expanded American presence.

But the new supply arrangements could leave the United States more reliant on cooperation from authoritarian countries like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, which have poor records on democracy and human rights.

The officials said delicate negotiations were under way not only with the Central Asian states bordering Afghanistan but also with Russia, to work out the details of new supply routes. The talks show the continued importance of American and NATO cooperation with the Kremlin, despite lingering tension over the war between Russia and Georgia in August.

American officials said they were trying to allay Central Asian concerns by promising that the supplies would be hauled only by commercial shipping companies and would not include weapons or munitions. Officials also say that no additional American bases will be required on their territory.

Photo

A truck carried supplies for American and NATO troops on a highway east of Kabul, Afghanistan. Credit
Musadeq Sadeq/Associated Press

Some of Afghanistan’s neighbors in the area, in particular Kyrgyzstan, already serve as staging areas for American supplies, and officials involved in the talks said these countries appeared eager to increase their role, both to help bring stability to the region and to benefit commercially from the arrangement.

Kyrgyzstan, farther to the north, allows American military cargo planes access to its airfields, in a deal that has become more important since 2005, when the government of Uzbekistan ordered the United States to leave a base there in a dispute over human rights issues.

American and NATO officials say concerns about Uzbekistan’s human rights record are less important to the current negotiations because any new arrangements would not require increased military-to-military cooperation, no new bases are under discussion and any increased supply shipments would be handled by commercial trucking companies.

Among other states, Kazakhstan is viewed as a potentially important supply hub, while the Caspian Sea port of Baku, Azerbaijan, could be a potential transit point for fuel and other goods arriving from Europe.

Gen. Duncan J. McNabb, chief of the American military’s Transportation Command, quietly visited nations along Afghanistan’s northern border last month, according to American military officials who declined to identify the countries by name for diplomatic reasons.

“These countries of Central Asia recognize that this is their struggle, too, in Afghanistan,” said one State Department official, who said those border nations had responded positively to talks on “how to improve, regularize, expand and find additional routes in.”

NATO officials say the attacks in Pakistan do not yet present a strategic threat to the American supply lines. But the closing of the supply line through Pakistan on Tuesday underscored the vulnerability of the route on which American and NATO forces depend.

Photo

A border guard closed the gates on the Uzbek bank of the frontier Amu-Darya River which separates Uzbekistan from Afghanistan in the fall of 2001.Credit
Pool photograph by Anvar Ilyasov

That route now runs more than 700 miles from the southern Pakistani port of Karachi to Peshawar, in northwestern Pakistan, and then through the Khyber Pass, the ancient gateway between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Khyber and the narrow highway that winds through it were once relatively safe, guarded by tribes paid by the Pakistani government that were subject to collective punishment for crimes against travelers, no matter who committed them.

But this year militants, including forces led by an upstart lieutenant to the Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud, have largely taken over the area as the Taliban have encroached on Peshawar, a frontier hub of three million people.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

The militants now routinely attack convoys on the route, firing rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikov rifles. Many truck drivers have stopped making the trip because it is so deadly. This month, militants ransacked a half-dozen supply depots in Peshawar itself, burning 300 cargo trucks and Humvees destined for NATO troops.

On Tuesday, troops from the Pakistani Frontier Corps shut down the route. Backed by helicopters, tanks and artillery, they swept through villages in the middle of the night, warning residents to stay inside all day.

Then, according to people interviewed by telephone from Jamrud and a nearby village, bulldozers destroyed the homes of men accused of harboring Taliban militants.

Tariq Hayat, the top Pakistani official in the Khyber region, said that he wanted to end the operation as quickly as possible, but that it was more important to do the job well. “We cannot do this every day,” he said. “We want to do a cleanup once and for all, and increase and expand our comfort zone so we don’t have these recurring problems every month or two months.”

Several children and at least one woman were killed, apparently by an errant artillery shell, Pakistani officials said. Residents reported hearing loud explosions and artillery fire. “We were attacked by helicopters, and we had to run for our lives from our home,” Taimur Khan, a Jamrud resident, said by telephone.

Photo

The United States and NATO are looking to Central Asian countries north of Afghanistan for more reliable supply lines.Credit
The New York Times

With the expected arrival of 20,000 to 30,000 American troops in Afghanistan in the coming year, the growing threat to the supply route through Pakistan has left American and NATO officials looking for greater flexibility, said Gen. John Craddock, NATO’s military commander.

About 31,000 American troops are in Afghanistan, including 14,000 in a NATO-led mission that has more than 51,000 troops. The increase outlined this month by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could nearly double the size of the American presence.

That would require taking into Afghanistan not only more war-fighting equipment, food and fuel, but also more lumber, concrete and other construction materials to build barracks and support structures. Maj. Gen. Michael S. Tucker, deputy commander of American forces in Afghanistan, said, “There’s a very huge building campaign that has already begun.”

Under plans described by the American military, a goal would be to buy significant amounts of supplies locally from the Central Asian economies.

Other supplies could be flown to Central Asia, but heavy construction equipment and fuel would be sent by rail and then loaded on trucks for the final journey into Afghanistan.

Some supplies could be sent directly overland from Europe or through Baltic ports, then transported along Russia’s well-developed rail system to Central Asia. Russia is the principal source of fuel for the alliance’s needs in Afghanistan, and the Kremlin already allows shipment of nonlethal supplies bound for Afghanistan to travel across Russian territory by ground.

In a new development, NATO and Russian representatives are discussing whether NATO may be allowed to move military equipment through Russian airspace, alliance officials said.

“Talks are now under way for a NATO-wide air transit for military goods, not specified as nonlethal,” said James Appathurai, NATO’s chief spokesman.

“Those talks are going well,” Mr. Appathurai added. “The Russian Federation has publicly and repeatedly made it clear that this is an issue of strategic interest to them, and that despite disagreements we have over other issues, this area of cooperation has been walled off and preserved. We expect it to be deepened.”